Is Economic Analysis Just For Economists?
Popular business magazines support the idea that an understanding of economics is useful to everyone in business, which naturally includes all investors. For example, Business Week magazine invariably offers no less than two articles about economic news and views, one with the auspicious title, Business Outlook. Senior Editor James C. Cooper and Kathleen Madigan co-author this column, which brims with statistics on Gross Domestic Product (CSI #2815), imports (CSI # 2719), exports (CSI # 2720), Fed Funds rates (CSI #2133), retail sales (CSI #3201), etc. A recent column cites business equipment sales (CSI #2832) as an indicator that the U.S. is still driving world economic growth. New York Times business writer Daniel Akst frequently quotes many of the economic series that are available to you through the Unfair Advantage economic database. His recent column (On the Contrary, NYT 2/6) forecasts rising inflation based on a rising Consumer Price Index (CSI #2710) and the yield spread betwe
